Mutatis Mutandis
by borgprincess
Summary: God knew that House would provoke thoughts of murder in even the most saintly soul…Chase is on the rampage, but why? A crossover with Threshold.


Disclaimer: Chase fans, please don't read on, unless you want to read about his death. You have been warned. Oh, and neither House nor Threshold belong to me. Sad, isn't it?

A/N: This was born out of the notion of how cool it would be to bring two of my favorite shows together. And out of my annoyance with Chase's character. Hence his death. Fanfic fulfils so many needs…

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Mutatis Mutandis, Privilegium non Valet Contra Rempublicam

Lisa Cuddy tried to disguise how badly shaken she was. Her entire body was trembling, her face stark white, standing out in contrast even against her light grey pinstripe suit with its low cut, ruffled white top- and not without cause. It wasn't everyday that one of her doctors flew into a homicidal rage and killed another employee before turning on her. Without conscious thought, her right hand strayed up to her throat, delicately brushing the bruised area. She was not seriously hurt, but the shock of it all had paralyzed her, and Cuddy simply remained motionless on the floor, leaning against the wall while she tried to process the nightmarish event that had occurred.

Barely a metre away from her, Doctor Chase's form lay terribly still. There was no doubt that he was dead- and she understood this fact with a numbness that would not allow any sorrow for him. Perhaps it would come later, once she understood what had happened, why he had snapped and lost control so dramatically.

_What could cause this?_ Cuddy thought, her gaze fastened on his face with sickened fascination. If she had not seen him for herself, stalked over to interrupt his confrontation with Cameron, been caught around the throat and forced to her knees as the cruel grip tightened menacingly, mesmerized by the look of animal fury in his eyes…she would never have believed that the charming young man with innocent blue eyes could be capable of such brutality. Yet she had witnessed the cold blooded murder of the poor orderly who had intervened in an effort to help her, watched with horror at the careless ease with which Chase snapped the man's arm in one lazy twist. He only had a moment to scream his suffering before a powerful kick broke his spine and sent him crumpling to the floor in defeat.

Her brow creased for a moment. Despite his courage in coming to her aid, she could not recall the man's name. He had lost his life for her, and she could not even do him the simple courtesy of remembering his name. Cuddy toyed with the paua shell pieces that gleamed on her necklace, tugging at it in discomfort as it chafed her throat, while she combed through the recesses of her mind in a vain attempt to dredge up a memory of him, a last name, an initial, whether he had a family, something…

Instead, her thoughts led her inexorably back to Chase.

After horrifically dispatching with the orderly- and with a stab of shame, Cuddy realized that she had feared more for her own safety in that moment, rather than mourning the death of the unknown orderly- his gaze had been caught by House, who stood back at the desk where she had been scolding him for trying to sneak out early yet again. Whether the diagnostician would have been his next victim was uncertain, but God knew that House would provoke thoughts of murder in even the most saintly soul, and suddenly, fear for him propelled her to her feet. Accidentally treading on the hem of her pants with one pointy heel in her haste to rise, Cuddy was not exactly sure what she was going to do. In hindsight, calling herself to the attention of a psychopathic murderer was perhaps the most irrational decision she had ever made in her life. At any rate, her gesture had done very little good, as Chase grasped her by the shoulders and contemptuously threw her to one side, sending her crashing into the wall. Her head connected painfully with the hard surface, creating an explosion of pain that had her fighting nausea and dizziness. Blackness swirled across her vision as Cuddy slid to the floor, the position where she was right now.

She didn't know what everyone else in the area had been doing. After what had happened to her would-be rescuer, she wouldn't have blamed the rest for keeping their distance. Survival instincts tended to kick in during situations of mortal danger like this, and the desire to stay alive conflicted rather sharply with any thought of being a hero.

"Hey, Chase!" a taunting voice called. "I thought taking drugs was Foreman's thing. Are you trying to get rid of your girly image by acting tough now? I'm not too sure this would do the trick though. It might offset those sissy blond curls of yours, but funnily enough, brutal murder tends to scare off most women."

Cuddy closed her eyes, feeling a mixture of exasperation and anxiety. Of course House wouldn't take the easy route and hide, try to call the police- no, that would be too safe and rational for him. Hopefully _someone_ had thought to do that, while he pursued this suicidal course.

"Of course, Cameron might be more interested in you now. You know how she loves lost causes. I'd say you definitely qualify."

Certain that she was about to witness House's final moments, she watched helplessly as Chase advanced. But all of a sudden, convulsions wracked Chase's body and he himself had succumbed to unimaginable agony as his limbs splayed out at unnatural angles, body contorting into a shape that Cuddy- despite all her years of training and experience- had never imagined possible. And his face…

If she had not seen him for herself as he underwent the horrifying transformation, she would never have known it was Chase. So mutilated were his features that it essentially rendered him faceless, eyes and nose and mouth barely identifiable, twisted and distorted as they were. The only thing she could understand was that he had died horribly. And been intent on taking them all with him.

Before she could redirect her gaze to the wretched sight of the broken body that had been Chase's one fatal victim, another person interrupted her bemused trance.

"Come on, Cuddy, up you get," a brusque tone ordered her.

She merely blinked at House.

"Oh, for crying out loud-" he balanced his cane against the wall and reached down to grab her arms, yanking her up to her feet. "Cuddy," he said sharply. "Don't make me slap you. I've been looking for a chance to publicly humiliate you for a long time now, and if you don't snap out of this, I might just take it." Immediately belying his words, the doctor looked around at the various people watching this little scene and asked with a reasonable amount of asperity, "Don't you all have better things to be doing? If you don't, you can come work in my department, how would that suit you instead?"

Galvanized into action by this threat, their audience dispersed, milling around with more purpose than before.

"You only have superficial injuries, minor bruising, and a sore throat, I imagine," he said with clinical detachment. "Have a few throat lozenges and you'll be fine. And I hear tea helps at times like these." He frowned quizzically. "Or was it Minties? Those would be good, too."

Speaking through the ache in her throat, Cuddy roused herself to comment, "Thank you for that pseudo-diagnosis. It's the first that you've volunteered without anyone having to browbeat you into it. How memorable."

"I'm happy that you're happy. Have you decided to return to reality again? Because for a moment there, I was sure we'd lost you. The level-headed Doctor Cuddy was just staring into space, lost in a daze. Of course, if you're still in a suggestible state, today might be the day I convince you to strip for me." At her unimpressed expression, he went on in a facetiously logical tone, "Medical reasons. Chase grabbed your arms pretty hard when he tossed you into the wall. And while I have quite a view of your cleavage from here, I haven't mastered the art of seeing through clothing just yet. So if you could just undress, I could properly examine any potential injury. You'd have my undivided attention." He gave Cuddy his best innocent little boy look.

Her normal composure was returning to her quite rapidly in the face of his acerbic comments. "Has anyone ever told you that your bedside manner sucks?" she asked rhetorically. "Oh, wait, that's the very reason I keep you around- your antisocial abrasiveness and narcissistic lack of decorum is a refreshing change from all the other compassionate doctors that actually want to _help_ sick people and make their lives better."

"Yep, the Evil Witch is back," he said to no one in particular. "Opportunity lost. In which case you can stop clinging to me, appealing as it is to have you play the helpless female. There's just no pay-off in the end."

She looked down pointedly. House followed her gaze to where his hands still gripped her arms. "Oh, silly me. I just have a hard time letting go, I get so concerned about people's wellbeing. What can I say? It's Cameron's caring attitude rubbing off on me. Point me in the right direction and you never know, this might be the day I respond with an outpouring of compassion and sympathy for the hopeless losers that turn up to the clinic."

"You know very well that the clinic won't be operating today, not after this," Cuddy darted a glance at the chaotic scene. "Who knows how long it's going to take to clean up this mess…"

"That's quite an interesting description of Chase," House turned to the corpse of the recently deceased doctor with exaggerated interest. "He certainly looks like a mess at the moment, doesn't he? I'll bet he's going to be really fascinating on the inside when we cut him open."

"You are a heartless bastard. But then again, I doubt I'm telling you anything new. So I'm going to do something useful and try to manage this"- she almost bit her tongue as she circumvented the word 'mess' and substituted- "crisis. You're off the hook with clinic duty for the time being." Shame though it was. Dragging in a fortifying breach, she lifted her chin high and attempted her usual authoritative tone, "Go settle all that paperwork you've got piled up or I might consider putting Foreman in charge again."

"Oh, please, anything but that," he drawled. "Why don't we settle for fifty lashes with a whip? Or you can beat me with my cane if you like. Just let me know when and I'll be in your office, ready to be punished."

"I think I would rather just knock you out with a tranquillizer and lock you into a cupboard where no one would ever find your body again," Cuddy said. "And I'd have the willing compliance of the entire hospital staff." She left with that parting shot.

House let her go, forsaking his usual desire to have the last word. After all, that would undermine his generous decision to snap Cuddy back to reality. What better way to do that than by bickering with her? It forced her to respond in kind, and that got her past the immediate shock of what had just happened, so that she could get back to doing her professional 'I'm-the-boss-of-the-hospital' thing. _And it's just plain fun, too_, he admitted to himself.

While the others carefully avoided Chase's body, he approached it with curiosity working overtime. This was definitely a case for Diagnostics. Well-versed in unusual and exotic symptoms and maladies as he was, Chase's case still eluded categorization for the moment. And he enjoyed unraveling the mysteries of the unknown. In death, he found Chase to be far more interesting than he ever had been in life.

House supposed that people would find that thought callous. No doubt there would be hordes of sentimental females weeping over the newspapers, struck with anguish at the thought of those perfect features mangled by such a horrific death. What sincerity was there in the sorrow of strangers over a person they never knew? They could claim the virtues of humanity and empathy til they were blue in the face, but it would do nothing for Chase's plight. What point was there in grief over a death that no amount of tears or prayers would reverse? He thought it much more important to discover what was responsible for causing it to happen in the first place, though not many people saw it that way. They were more concerned with displaying their misery and unhappiness, parading around their distress at how life had been deprived from one more human being, like they thought it was all about them and their reaction to the injustice of death.

He groaned as the thought struck him. Cameron was going to be insufferable for days, he just knew it.

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A/N: If you have never watched Threshold, don't worry, you don't need to see it to understand the upcoming chapters. Although the background would probably help, and it's a great series that I would recommend you watch, though it was prematurely cancelled. Argh. Anyway, thanks for reading!


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